And then, about eight months later, the nonprofit re-contacts her with a friendly reminder (I paraphrase): ‘In case you forgot … You didn’t. You didn’t.’

Please tell me your organization wouldn’t do this!

Before you do anything, draft anything, design anything … wear you donor’s shoes.

Tom

P.S. One way of looking at Gayle’s Kiva example is that they were trying inappropriately to ‘convert’ her from an ‘institutional’ donor (the kind most nonprofits would love to have) to a ‘microloan donor’. The next two Agitator posts get into a squabble about what constitutes acceptable ‘donor conversion’. Get ready for fisticuffs!

4 Responses to “Wear Your Donor’s Shoes”

Spot on. Instead of deciding what to offer our supporters we could ask them what they’d like. Walking a mile in their moccasins as the saying goes means we will better understand what they are trying to do, wanting to make a difference and be able to empathise with their view of what we look like! It might be a bit scary but the insight is priceless.

I’ve had the experience of giving a donation that exceeded our membership cost and because we didn’t turn it in with our membership paperwork we weren’t listed as organizational members. It wasn’t a HUGE deal, but left a bad taste. Made it less fun to give a donation to a fun organization we liked.

Also had to fight the battle that all employee donors be included in our employee giving society, not just the ones who give payroll deductions. They don’t make the distinction of how they give, so why should we? To have someone give $100 as a one time gift and not be listed, when other employees gave less than $25 over the course of a year through deductions and be listed in publications, entered in drawings, etc..just didn’t make sense.